An "Unpleasant Fragrance"

One of my friends here in Hong Kong tells a story of coming home to her former hi-rise HK apartment one day to a horrendous odor in the kitchen. She went to the (on-site) building management to report that there was a bad smell in her kitchen. Well, I guess to the English-as-a-foreign-language set, the word "smell" is always a verb. Therefore, she could NOT make them understand.

Whereupon she dragged the guy up to her apartment and demonstrated...."Ah!", the man said after he finally realized what she was trying to say, "an unpleasant fragrance!"

I've had some problems of my own lately. All of the traditionally "wet" rooms in my apartment (the bathrooms and the laundry room) have vents in a side wall at floor level. And recently, a MOST unpleasant fragrance was emanating from them and, quite frankly, blowing me away.

I tried pouring Clorox down my drains - it would work for about 12 hours, and then the smell was back. I knew I wasn't the only one to have problems, as at certain times, I smelled the distinct odor of a strong mouthwash - so I know someone else was trying to kill the stench, too.

But...it was not until my "unpleasant fragrance" friend mentioned above was talking to me about SARS (2003 crisis here in HK) that I finally got my answer.

Long story short...SARS spread in a large apartment complex on the Kowloon side of Hong Kong THROUGH THE DRAINS. Most drains in your house that deal with waste water - toilets, sinks, laundry, tubs- have a U-shaped trap system installed in the drain piping. The idea is that this "trap" contains water - and that the water prevents any gaseous backup (the unpleasant fragrance) from coming into your home.

One of the keys to the fact that the SARS big spread through the drains was that the germ migrated on steamy water through the pipes of the apartment building - AND THE TRAPS WERE DRY!

The article went on to say that most people used to clean their bathroom/kitchen/laundry floors by sluicing water around - and it would automatically drain through the drains I described above. But these days, most people MOP their floors - less water, and, quite frankly, we haven't sluiced floors outside of a commercial kitchen or abbatoir in the US for many years. We're out of practice. Our sink/tub/toilet traps tend to stay wet - but not the floor drains.

So...the next time I smelled an "unpleasant fragrance", I hurried to empty a liter bottle of water down the "drain". Haven't had a problem since.

Culture Shock

Ah, my heart is broken...but I've learned that pride DOES "goeth before a fall"...

Last week I had an appointment (sales call) at the Hong Kong equivalent of our US College Board (the agency who administers and scores college entrance exams). I went with one of my colleagues (a woman). This woman is of Chinese descent, was born and escaped from Viet Nam during the time of the "boat people", and was raised in Perth. How's that for multi-cultural!

On the way back from the meeting, we were walking through one of the areas of Hong Kong that seems to be from a century ago - open air stalls (reminds me of New York street fair for those of you who know of what I speak), lots of price negotiations, crowded and lively.

We passed by a booth that had lovely lacey crocheted "over-things" - and by this, I mean things under which you would HAVE to wear another garment, or risk being arrested for lewdness. With my current experiment into knitting lace, plus my years of crochet under my belt, I turned to my colleague (with some amount of pride in my voice) and said, "I can make things like this!"

She turned to me and said, "But why, when you can buy them?"

I looked at her aghast, and blurted out, "But that's not the POINT!!!" But realized, in Hong Kong, I was fighting a losing battle....

Culture shock...